


Breathe

by Cyrelia_J



Series: Rain Inside Your Eyes [3]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Asexual Character, Drama, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Insecurity, M/M, Mental Anguish, Past Child Abuse, Self-Esteem Issues, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 16:27:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14288871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyrelia_J/pseuds/Cyrelia_J
Summary: (Sequel to Heathen and Brain and a chance to resolve a lot of tension, pining... we'll see)Julian's been left broken on the floor leaving Garak to pick up the pieces. They always do leave him with the dirty work...Julian POV





	Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know that warnings will suffice but I'll try. Being that this is the last in this already heavy series this really ramps it up starting with the 1st person POV going from there. Julian has a lot of trauma, angst, and this was a hell of a thing to write but here it is. It's VERY heavy on the emotions and intense so be warned.
> 
> One last songfic for the road

_Help, I have done it again_

_I have been here many times before_

_Hurt myself again today_

_And the worst part is there's no one else to blame_

 

I’ve never been held in anyone’s arms before; not like this. I’ve never been carried like this. I’ve never had anyone else willing to bear my weight, never had anyone think that I needed it... that I wanted it. I imagine that once when I was a child, when my mother and father thought that I was still some fragile and breakable thing, that surely they must have carried me. I have to imagine it because I can’t remember it. My memory is perfect so if I don’t remember it then it never happened. It’s sort of a horrible thing, really- especially now because I don’t forget things. I never forget anything no matter how small it is; not anymore. It all swims around forever like little artifacts of old code in a computer program that I can’t shut off. That’s why I know everyone lies; I remember every action, every word that contradicts what they tell me. That’s also why I know that they all hate me. That’s why I know that _you_ hate me. 

I once wanted to believe at the heart that people were good, that people were born into the world pure and without hate... I think that’s the great deception of humanity; that we so easily forget things. We discard things that are damaging, hurtful, unpleasant. We forgive. We move on. But for me... it doesn’t matter if I forgive them. They say some forgive but never forget but in my mind it’s not merely not forgotten but it’s there forever insist and ever present and I can’t make it stop. It doesn’t matter if I forgive you telling me that we’re better off apart, that the way I look at you is miserable and cold and that you can no longer stand it. It’s there- all your words are there- every day like you just spoke them. The niceties don’t matter. People feign tolerance, they feign acceptance, they feign love. People rarely feign contempt. I’m just… grateful that you didn’t leave me on the floor to die in front of everyone.

 

I’m glad that I get to die like this.

 

I like the way that you cradle my body so carefully when you lift me off the floor and press your lips lightly to my forehead. I like the way you hold your arms so that my head can rest against your chest. I like that your heartbeat drowns out the rest of the noise if only for a few minutes. I like shutting my eyes against you and feeling safe. I could sleep like this absolutely forever- and alright it’s bittersweet to know that it’s only dying that brings me so close to you- and I’m alright with that. I’m tired and I’m just glad that it doesn’t hurt and that I can breathe in your scent and feel your warmth. If I had to choose one last memory to hold and wash away every other it would be this one. I don’t care if I forget my name, my family, my life, my own existence... Not if I can remember you carrying me like I mean something to you. That’s what I think when I slip off to sleep. I’m glad that it’s over.

 

But then your words wake me up and I realize that I’m still alive.

It’s sort of a miserable let down.

 

“I’ve never considered it a kindness to keep someone from a death they so dearly desired,” are the words you speak that bring me back to life. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand the human desire to wrench one from the soothing darkness of non-existence.” I feel your fingers, the back of them, rough over the side of my face. “Humans have a pithy understanding of true kindness.” Your touch is so light that I can almost believe I’m imagining it. “But in the end, I suppose the ramblings of an old Cardassian tailor amount to little but nonsense.” I feel your hand leave and I feel the bed shift. “You’re alive, and I was given the unenviable task of seeing that you remain so against your obvious wishes to the contrary.” I know that you must be speaking terribly softly because it isn’t too loud. It’s close without hurting- at least not my ears. Your words still make it burn behind my eyes. Of course you wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t asked it of you.

I’m alive. The numbers, the memories are still vivid. It’s still too much in my head all at once. I’m alive and the serum failed. So then now the odds of my dying slowly are at forty percent with the other alternatives dwindled down. It will come slow enough to likely see us through to the end of the war if it does come. There was a chance of less than five percent that I would’ve been locked in my own mind with everything else seized up. That window passed. So the odds of nothing happening at all are sixty percent. But it should have worked. It should have worked or I should have been granted a merciful fucking _death_. Not this; anything but this. I shut my eyes tighter. I don’t want to open them. I feel a hitch in my throat and I swallow it down. I hate this so much.

“I know you’re awake, Julian,” you say to me with a sigh, a pause and I don’t understand why. Are you upset that I’ve inconvenienced you? Right, probably. You have important work to do. You shouldn’t be wasting your time on me like this. I can feel another of those hiccups trying to escape. I can’t seem to get rid of the lump in my throat and I don’t know how I’m going to answer you. I don’t want you to accuse me of being arrogant, cold, because I can’t make myself speak past the relentless urge to surrender to those dry sobs. So I try at the very least to open my eyes; I don’t feel light burning through my eyelids. I’m glad that the room is still dark. I can see the bed above me and imagine that we must be in one of the bunks. I don’t hear anyone else’s heartbeat. I try and take a long slow breath but they just... keep stopping... and this is so embarrassing... and I imagine you’re looking at me coldly, disdainfully, angry that I’m breaking down like this in front of you.

 

_“Stop crying, Jules. It’s shameful and no one is going to feel bad for you…”_

 

I hear my father in my head. I always hear him. I hear him now berating me for being too sensitive to his criticisms, to yours, to everyone’s. I hear him chastising me for being such a burden to both him and my mother, for burdening all of you. They didn’t fix me to be a burden. They didn’t put themselves into debt so that I could fail all of you. I don’t... I don’t understand why I couldn’t… why I can’t be better for everyone. I don’t understand why I can’t make myself try harder. And then comes that flash in my brain- I see pages and pages of texts on counseling, on child abuse, on emotional abuse. That was from my supplemental training as a counselor at the Academy. The data in my head spits back at me that it’s textbook abuse- simple as that and now I know it’s okay and it can get better from there. But nothing makes it stop. I didn’t used to know why that knowledge didn’t make my father’s voice in my head stop. But then I realized it’s because it was true; then as now. He’s right. My father is always right about me. I think that’s what I hate about him the most. 

We’re at war, his voice tells me. We don’t have time for me to fall apart; what a selfish thing to burden everyone with. I’m not dead. This doesn’t matter. My feelings don’t matter. I shouldn’t have given in to the nonsense. It’s always nonsense. _Nonsense_ is one of my father’s favorite words. The other is my name- funny that. I hear my name so much, Jules Jules Jules. Do you remember when everyone found out about me, and I told all of you that I changed my name because I didn’t feel like myself any longer? I felt like I had been changed, a chrysalis from a caterpillar to a butterfly, that’s what I said to you. That’s what I’d rehearsed in the mirror. Maybe that’s why you thought that I was arrogant but… but the truth is that I can’t hear that name anymore without… without my chest starting to tighten, without feeling like I’m suffocating or drowning or like everything is going to start shrieking at me in his voice. That name “Jules” is a torment.

I sit up- surprised that I can sit up but I shouldn’t be. At the rate my body metabolizes things I should have known it would burn out and be gone. Whatever temporary paralysis my failure caused couldn’t last forever. I suppose this is better than being trapped in a body that won’t move. I don’t know. I don’t know anything. No I… I know that I can move. I know that I don’t feel dizzy. I know that the burning behind my eyes is starting to subside. I know that you’re here and you’re not my father... You’re not him. I shouldn’t have let your words affect me. I- 

I can hear you breathing. Your back must be to me now from the sound of it and I can hear your breaths growing erratic. I hope you’re not upset with me. I shouldn’t have told you that I loved you. You don’t like me any longer. We’re not friends anymore so… Your heart is beating faster. It’s faint but I can hear it _pathumtpathump_ steady and strong and I can see you draw a large breath like my father used to when I agitated him with my nonsense. You’re not my father. _Please don’t yell at me._ Sometimes you remind me of him. _I’ll leave. I promise I’ll leave_. Sometimes you remind me of him and that terrifies me. I can’t take any more censure from you. Not today, not tonight just… I force myself to keep breathing before I forget. I turn to look at you. You’re sitting on the edge of the bed. I can see a tremor of your shoulders. I hope you’re not cold. My muscles feel too loose, slightly awkward when I crawl over to you.

I want to hold you. I want to comfort you if I’ve upset you. Instead I just... rather pathetically lean my forehead against the back of your neck, settling for that last small bit of comfort. 

“P-please don’t say anything… p-please…” I whisper to the fabric of your uniform. I can feel the ridges at the back of your neck against my forehead. They feel softer than I would’ve imagined. It’s a nice feeling. I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve to be here with you. You must be terribly irritated with me. You can’t possibly want me here intruding on your time any further. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t trying to… to… I just… I couldn’t… forget it I’m sorry I’ve been such a burden to all of you I-” I stop speaking when you move and I-

 

Why are you hugging me?

Why are you crying?

 

But you are. You’ve turned and your arms are around me so tightly that my arms are trapped at my sides unable to move. I can feel your face pressed to my neck. I can feel the dampness of sweat, mucus, tears, and I feel you shuddering against me, your mouth moving into my skin. 

 

_Be my friend, hold me_

_Wrap me up, unfold me_

_I am small, I'm needy_

_Warm me up and breathe me_

 

“I’m sorry,” is what it feels like your mouth is enunciating, what it feels like you’re trying to say to me and I don’t understand. “Sorry” is my line, my word. Sorry is what I’m supposed to say for coming across as cold, for making everyone around me feel like less, for upsetting everyone, for upsetting you, for disappointing you all, for letting you down, for not being stronger. Sorry is mine. I don’t want it and I hate it but sorry is all that I have… and then I remember in the supply room you said those words to me too. I thought it was a trick of the light then but… but you were crying. You were crying for me. But that’s not possible. I hear all of your words replaying perfectly said and none of them are... _“I should hate to lose your friendship but it this is how it must be...”_ where did that come from? I should have remembered that. No...no that has to be some figmnet because...

 

_“Why would anyone cry for you? You’re not worth crying for.”_

 

My head moves just a bit to the right, the only action I can manage the way that you’re holding me and I can feel the side of my face resting atop your head. It feels so nice.

“I don’t understand,” I whisper closing my eyes so I can remember how your arms feel around me and how you smell like warmth and a little coriander. I sigh deeply. “It isn’t your fault that they’re making you… keep me alive.” I broke again. I hear my father telling me that there are only so many times people will forgive me. He tells me there are only so many times that people will pick me up. People don’t want to deal with things that need too much, that don’t work. He told me the only reason that he and my mother didn’t leave me hanging from the rafters slowly suffocating from my bedsheets and stupidity was because they spent too much money on me. One day, he told me as my mother held the damp rag under my bloody nose, he won’t be able to help me any longer and the wolves will devour me like Peter.

“Guls you’re… such an infuriating fool,” I hear you say against me.  

“I thought the same of you once,” I answer softly, unsure of what else to say. I remember telling you years ago that I was taking you back to the infirmary. “I suppose you didn’t consider that kind either. I suppose that you considered it to be one of those miserable human things but… it wasn’t about being human. I understood… I know how it feels to be in so much pain that death isn’t… isn’t the goal but rather… inconsequential so long as the pain stops. But… selfishly I couldn’t bear the thought of a world where you no longer existed... You don’t understand no matter how many times I’d have put you together, no matter what I’d do, you don’t… you don’t understand...” 

My arms shift, wiggle, and I let myself just… hug you in turn, my hands light on your back because I’m terrified of hurting you. 

“I understand that I’m just… I’m just necessary.,” I continue when you say nothing. “Sort of have to be here but to me-”

“And that’s why you’re a Guls damned fool,” you say to me and I think you might be squeezing the breath out of me when you do. Your voice is still unsteady and I realize you’re not angry and that smothering embrace isn’t to hurt me. It’s to reassure me that I don’t need be afraid to respond in kind. _“I’m not sure why I feel that your underestimating me, Julian but you are...”_ Another snippet, another remnant that I don’t understand.

I swallow hard. I’m afraid. I couldn’t forgive myself for hurting you. 

“You won’t hurt me,” you say reading that uncertainty, and I remember reading a report while researching your condition that Cardassians have a higher pain tolerance, higher bone density than humans. One can read without believing and I’m scared but I squeeze you harder, feeling the nod of your head and I’m so tense I know that I’m shaking but I keep going and I feel your breaths ragged and nearly stop but you shake your head when I let up until it’s all my strength and I’m sure you’re squeezing back just as tightly. Your body feels like my body and I can feel my chest heave with more of those miserable dry sobs that aren’t able to do more than make a pitiable mimicry of a living thing. Machines can’t cry after all. It’s pathetic. I apologize again. So do you. You tell me again how much of a fucking fool I am and I… I love you so much that I swear it’s going to kill me when you let go of me.

 

But you don’t let me go.

 

One of my earliest memories is of my aunt’s parlor. What I remember most vividly are two dolls that were placed above the fireplace. I never knew how old they were but they seemed exceptionally old, porcelain things that she told me had been passed down by my great aunt. They were two children dressed in rags, bundled for the cold with their arms around each other. They looked past each other, out at the world, holding each other closely for warmth, for protection. I tried to separate the dolls once on that singular podium that they shared. They were stuck, some heat damage having caused it to be impossible for them to be separated. My aunt had just smiled at me as she set them back on the mantle and told me they were called the orphans. I always wondered what it might like to be the other half of that whole. I think of them now which is just...so… _stupid_ because you and I aren’t anything to each other anymore. I don’t know why we’re holding each other like this. I don’t know why you’re crying. 

You’re not like me. You don’t cry these self pitying tears; you drink, you act out, you but you don’t...

“Is it so inconceivable... that I too find the thought of losing you like this... more than I can bear?” You’re lying. They told you to watch me. That’s what you said, I heard you. You don’t care about me. I’m nothing to you. 

“Don’t... lie... n-not... n-not about that... I... I c-can b-believe anything... anything you t-tell me but...”

“I would tell you... the sincerity of my words but...” You swallow. You laugh bitterly caught in the liar’s trap. “You can see my quandary...”

“I told you that if you keep lying then no one will believe you,” I whisper. I have to whisper because my teeth are starting to chatter from the nerves and I can’t get the sounds out right otherwise. I remember telling you that story though. I remember telling you that same as my father had told it to me. But I lied to you. That isn’t the moral of the story- not as it was told to me. The real moral of the story is that if you ask for help over and over... then no one will save you. Everyone will see how incapable you are. Everyone will realize you’re not worth saving... That’s what I realized in that camp when no one came for me... when you came but... not for me.

 

I’m not worth saving.

 

“You used to believe every lie that I told you.” I turn my face into you again when you say that just... just shaking my head because I can’t say it. I don’t want to say it. It took me... it took me years to realize that I didn’t have to believe you; that I could tell you I didn’t believe you and you wouldn’t... be upset with me… you wouldn’t- “Julian?” That’s my name. I love it when you say my name because you almost never do. It makes me feel like I matter to you when you say my name.

“Again,” I plead with you in such a small voice I don’t think you heard me but-

“Your name?” I nod. I can’t ask you again but I need you to say it. I need you to give me that strength because there are so many things that I can’t say... that I’ve never been able to say and I need you to treat me like me just-

“Julian,” you say again and I nod, my mind making a mental replay crossing “my dear” with your accented rendition of my name for a fleeting moment of fantasy. _“My Julian…”_ Never. That will never happen.

 

_Ouch, I have lost myself again_

_Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found_

_Yeah, I think that I might break_

_Lost myself again and I feel unsafe_

 

“I...” my nails curl into your back and I expect a sound of pain because I can’t... I can’t be gentle right now. It’s too hard right now and I can’t even make myself relax my hold on you. I’m afraid if I do I’ll drown and I can already feel my lungs constricting. “I’ve... n-never believed you,” I say and there’s silence to that. I hate silence. I hate your silence because I’m always afraid that one day it’s going to be like my father’s silence and it’s going to be followed by-

“I... don’t understand,” is what you say back. _I’m sorry. I’m sorry please don’t hurt me I’ll believe anything you tell me to just don’t-_ “I... want to understand,” you continue instead and I know that I’m shaking and I remember that you used to be an interrogator while imagining what horrors went with that but I never imagined that it would entail speaking to me so softly. I never imagined an interrogation could be this cruelly mockingly kind.

I can’t say it. I can’t start but again you’re silent, surely a burden for you, breathing against me and even though my grip on you doesn’t slack, yours does, your hand rubbing my back, your fingers up and down my neck and I wonder if that’s the Cardassian neck trick that Odo talks about because it... it makes me feel safe. I shut my eyes tightly and listen to you breathe, the sound mixing with my own unsteady breaths. My shoulder is damp through the cloth of my uniform. That’s from you. Even if it’s just crocodile tears as my father would say I want it to be real. I don’t want to lie to you anymore. So I say it. 

“Did you know that when your hearing is so acute, so sensitive, as mine is… that it takes very little for someone to be able to terrorize you with the sound of their voice?” I don’t know why I can say it so steadily, so evenly all of a sudden. It’s that same distant thing that you hate and I can feel your tension again but I say nothing. “And then imagine that there is a man... a man whose self-worth is entirely based around his own grand self-delusions... and you live with that man your entire life... with his delicate ego and his _voice_ so loud that it hurts even if he raises it just a little bit and... and... and you tell me, Garak, would you dare contradict him?” I can feel my shoulders quake- that shiver almost unbearable. “Would you dare contradict anyone? Ever? When loud noises hurt your ears, when bright lights hurt your eyes, when patterns and motion hurts your head and he... can make you hurt whenever he wants without raising a hand to you... without raising his voice at you...” 

I swallow. I feel a few hiccuping laughs. “My father... ha... my.... my father... Richard Bashir God of Failure lies as easily as he breathes with a smile on his face and a happy how d’you do. Of course I knew you were lying. I always knew you were lying. People lie to me all the time. That’s all they ever do. I expect it. I accept it. It doesn’t matter.” Every part of you is tense. You stop. I stop and I feel the fight drain out of me, that brief rush of adrenaline dumping, my muscles relaxing ‘til I’ve almost collapsed into you. You’re angry but then... but then that tension is gone and I hear you mutter soft curses, swearing that you’d have killed him before the Federation ever took him if you-

“Garak?” My throat isn’t as tight. I think it’s too spent to be tight now. I feel you lift your head and I’m sure this is more than you ever wanted to hear. I didn’t think that it would last but it was nice and I let you go a short moment after you do. This is enough, I tell myself. It will have to be. You look at me and I imagine that you can see just as well as I can in the dark. It’s hard to tell but your face looks swollen, your eyes are, your pupils are dilated wide, and your face is an awful mess. “I’m sorry,” I say again knowing that it’s my fault. You just shake your head as you pull out a handkerchief and tell me that it would be a poor tailor who didn’t carry extra fabric around with him as you blow your nose and stuff the rag back into your pocket. 

“Well, I might ask you to take my hands but I can hardly expect a doctor to agree to such an unsanitary suggestion.” 

I take your hands. I don’t care if you blow your nose in my shirt if it means you’ll stay. You shake your head but you smile at me and I’ve done nothing to deserve it.

“You didn’t cry for your father’s death. You didn’t cry for any of it but I should believe that this is upsetting you?” That’s the next thing I say to you because I’m incapable of saying the right thing to anybody. You shake your head at me but you keep smiling. You squeeze my hands. 

“There was a man that I read about once. His name isn’t particularly important only that he was a Gul of some status and he’d had the misfortune of making enemies of the wrong people.”

“I imagine you could name more than a few people like that.” You squeeze my hands again with a soft tilt of your head. I wish you weren’t such a good actor.

“The hazards of a customer oriented profession, my dear. But this Gul was taken into custody and he wouldn’t give the information that was needed. He was a cold and crafty man as well. He could lie fantastically under torture and so his family was brought in and one by one, they were made example of with him sitting by calmly not saying a word.” 

You pause here, with that bit of theatric and I missed this so much. 

“That is until we brought in his favorite riding hound.”

“His... riding hound?”

“Oh yes, one would not think of such a thing for say a man who could watch his beloved wife lose fingers. Incidentally, I read that it was his wife, in fact who screamed as they started with her center finger that if they really wanted him to talk they should get the hound. I’ll spare you the details, but needless to say, he wept like a child at the very thought of anyone hurting the animal and confessed to everything. This outpouring of grief- from a man who didn’t shed a single tear for his parents, his wife, or his children.” 

“Are you... calling me a riding hound?” It’s an analogy only you would make. Such a stupid, thoughtless thing but the way that you’re looking at me I almost think I understand. But you... you hate me... you have to hate me because it’s all there in my mind swirling around in my mind, your words and I know I didn’t imagine it but now they’re weirdly mixing with these other words too and I don’t understand how I could have forgotten some but not others.

“You’re my implant.” More words. More words that sound like the years of kind words that float like precious lillies in a black pool of miasma. There’s another squeeze and you look at me just a moment before leaning in slowly and my heart is beating faster because I don’t know if you’re going to try and kiss me. I don’t want you to. I don’t want to pull back if you do. I don’t want to disappoint you. I don’t want to lose whatever this is and I almost miss your forehead coming to rest against mine. And that’s where you stop and tell me to close my eyes. 

 

_Be my friend, hold me_

_Wrap me up, unfold me_

_I am small, I'm needy_

_Warm me up and breathe me_

 

“You are my implant,” you say again firmly. “You are that necessary piece embedded in my head which makes the cold bearable.”

“You forgot me. All of you… It was so easy… so easy for you all to forget I existed,” The words come easier with my eyes closed like this, without having to look at you. My hands shake as hard as I squeeze yours. “I wanted… I wanted to be so angry with you… I came home to a tomb, to my own grave, already dead and buried and none of you cared… Even when I was normal... even before all this I was nothing to you… to any of you… But I would… I could never wish any of that misery on someone else… not when I know how badly it hurts. Do you… do you know that hundreds of years ago a man postulated three rules for artificial intelligence, for robots, for people like me… The first rule of robotics; a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction allow a human being to come to harm.”

“You’re not a robot, Julian-”

“That’s right, I’m a Vulcan.”

“I was wrong. I was wrong about a great number of things and I don’t imagine that any apology should suffice.”

“You don’t have to apologize.” You don’t owe me anything. It doesn’t matter. 

“I will and I am because you are my… dearest friend and that I should forget that for a moment in misery, in despair, in any rational state of mind no matter how bleak is unforgivable.”

“I would never not forgive you.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t hold that grudge for yourself, but for one of your patients, even for the enemy you absolutely would fight to the death to save them. But not for yourself; you wouldn’t lift a finger to save yourself if you thought it would come at the cost of someone else.” You give my hands a shake emphatically and I don’t know why you’re saying this to me. I don’t know where this is coming from and I don’t even know how to answer you. “You’re not a machine. You’re an infuriating infinitely _human_ creature- the best of humanity if one were looking to stroke your ego which I most certainly am not- and you can hurt, and be hurt, and I don’t imagine you’re of a mind to heed anything I tell you but there are times when people must be hurt for their own good. People cannot grow without some measure of pain for reflection.”

“God what a Cardassian thing to say.” You pull back suddenly, and I’m afraid that it’s too much and I’m already opening my mouth to apologize but you hold up your left hand, right still holding onto mine.

“Good, say it again.” You’re looking at me so seriously now. Isn’t this why you wanted nothing to do with me? Isn’t this that arrogance that you were talking about isn’t this why you…?

“Isn’t this why you didn’t want to be my friend anymore? For saying these sorts of things to you?”

“Never. Thought you’d moved on? Thought you might have tired of my company? Thought a million things equally as ludicrous as the notion that I no longer hold you in esteem? Yes. Desired to end our friendship? Never.” You pull back just a bit but pull me with you, urging me to sit next to you on the bed. My head is spinning but everything is clear, and sharp, the moment never more immediate, the rest of the noise swimming in the background trying to drag me back but I- “Don’t forgive me. Be angry with me, tell me I’m a wretched lying lizard and that you’ll never believe another word that I say to you. I welcome it. I welcome whatever you give to me. If you give it as yourself… without fear that I would ever… hurt you.” I wonder as I turn and look in your eyes how many times you’ve said that. I wonder if it was before or after the pain stick. I wonder how many hands you held right before you pulled out fingernails with a smile. 

“I don’t believe you,” I say watching you closely. Your pressure on my hand doesn’t change. You turn away. I think that this is likely it and it’s just one lie on top of another as I watch you turn to face the opposite bunks. You’re still holding my hand and I look at them joined, almost jumping when you speak again.

“I had a rather unremarkable childhood,” you say finally and I watch your face as you continue staring ahead. “My mother was a housekeeper, my father was a gardener. You can imagine the sort of idyllic setting from some of those quaint pastoral tales of servitude but my friend Kelas on the other hand-”

“I thought your friend was named Elim.” I remember you said that to me before Elim was you and everything was a lie more blatant than the last. I hear that familiar scoff of yours and can’t help but smile at it.

“I don’t know if I should be offended that you think my charm only sufficient to attract one boyhood acquaintance but for the sake of generosity I’ll overlook that insult, my dear.” I see a small smile on your face just at the corner. It’s nice. It’s familiar. Ah right, you’re lying. I think I’ve grown to enjoy the comfort of your lies in a way I never could my father’s. 

“As I was saying, my friend Kelas was an unfortunate child from the north, small, sickly, some sort of albinism making his hair white. His parents, like most Northerners were rather uncivilized as well you see they had this peculiar habit of locking him in the basement when he displeased them. They had, a very dark, very _cold_ basement that had- incidentally- a cell left over from much darker times in our history. Sometimes Kelas would spend days down there trapped, the walls closing in, the rats biting, the ceiling coming down, everything caving down-” I feel you tremble and I squeeze your hand. I lean into you. I was wrong before. You don’t lie like my father does. My father doesn’t lie with any emotion or feeling. There’s never any truth in his lies. They’re a selfish grand delusion. And somewhere along the way I forgot… in this infallible positronic brain… that all of your lies are true… in the end, in some fashion...

“Where’s Kelas now?” I ask you quietly.

“Dead, I’m afraid.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“You doubt me, naturally, but my dear Kelas was too sensitive, too weak, always so breakable… I miss him every day.”

“I don’t believe a word of that, Garak.”

“And yet you do, all the same.”

“Can we stay here like this then? If I tell you I believe you?”

“Even if you say that don’t, we can stay here as long as you’d like.” Your lies really are such sweet things. I let my eyes stop focusing- it’s easy when it’s dark like this. I hear the hum of the Defiant, of the power running around us but I can handle just the hum. I can handle hearing your breaths. 

“I don’t want to leave here. I can’t go back out there... you don’t understand how much it hurts... how much everything moves... how the lights hurt, how the sounds hurt, the motions, the colors, the way it just spins in my head...”

“...I don’t understand everything... but you don’t think I understand enough, Julian... now that I know?” Of course. The hypospray, the implant, the look in your eyes when said that I couldn’t let you end it. Of course you’d understand. If no one else in the world understands me... should understand it should be you. You understand the outcasts, the scoundrels, the scum, the misfits. All of us... Ah... right... all of us. Me... her... right... I don’t have the right to ask that of you anymore. Sometimes you lie so well and I want to believe so badly that it’s easy to get carried away with myself. 

“I understand that you’ve found yourself a new implant.” It’s stupid, it’s petty, it’s such a ridiculous jealous thing to say to you in a moment like this. I hear a shift of muscles and watch your head tip back with a soft laugh.

“I do seem to have acquired a gift for attracting wayward children to me with wide eyes and childish declarations of love.”

“I’m glad that you find this so amusing.” I pull my hand back crossing my arms tightly. You take my hands back looking in my eyes. You’re not laughing any more. 

“I have _nothing_ to give you- either of you precious innocent offspring of two of the greatest monsters in the galaxy.” I see your head bowed toward the ground as you finish. “Nothing, Julian.”

“I’m not a child, Garak.”

“Oh you are very much my dear, and it’s a beautiful thing. I promise you it is.” I can feel my face pulling into a frown because while I might imagine some scenario with Ziyal, determined, bold, a lifetime of knowing the folly of waiting when death is such a looming thing, I don’t know if you imagine the same boldness from me. We might be similar, the two of us, to you but....

 

_Be my friend, hold me_

_Wrap me up, unfold me_

_I am small, I'm needy_

_Warm me up and breathe me_

 

“You’re wrong about us. Whatever she might give you...” I take a breath looking down at our hands. “I can’t. Nothing but _this_...” I turn my hands in yours squeezing them back. “-nothing but an embrace... I can’t...” I feel my voice crack. I can’t seduce you. I can’t entice you with my body even if it was a thing that ever attracted you. I can’t promise you legacy or ecstasy or anything like that. I don’t even know what I’m saying, what I’m asking you to do or why I’m pressing you but- I don’t know why I can’t say it. It’s a word, it’s just one word, a clinical thing so that you understand that when I tell you that I’m broken and that it doesn’t work that I’m thankful for that small mercy because I don’t want it to work. And I can feel that emotion welling up, bottle to bursting and I can feel my heart beating faster when I try and put it into words.

“We’re not the same because she’s... she’s better for you in the end, she’s everything you ought to want and that’s fine but I... I _need_ you to understand what I said... That when I tell you that I love you it isn’t the _same_. I don’t say it with those feeling with those... stirrings... I don’t say it and hope that you kiss me or fall into bed with me or any number of things that normally follow.” God the shaking is back and I swallow hard. “I don’t... I don’t feel things that way... I never have and I don’t know if it’s because of what they did to me but... it’s never been there and it never will be there so... so when I tell you that I just... I just want to fall asleep with my head on your shoulder. I want to curl against you so that you can be warm. And I’ve been told...” Lord not now... I hate that my voice starts faltering again now but this is so hard to say and so... so miserable and I never say it like this, it’s always a quick rundown and a go from there. It’s not raw, bleeding, an open wound like this but it’s different because it’s you.

“You’ve been told,” you urge gently, another fucking interrogation and I just... make myself  keep talking no matter how much the tremors increase.

“I’ve been told that’s not real love, that’s friendship, that I don’t know my own feelings and that I’m little better than a pet, than a _child_ who doesn’t understand what it means to love someone but I know, Garak, I know the damn difference and I don’t have any _friends_ that I want to spend the rest of my life arguing with, who I want to lay down next to every night, who I want to make a damn life with! So don’t give me whatever line you gave her, don’t tell me that someone better is going to come along for me because people don’t fucking want broken sexless androids!” 

I’m yelling. It hurts my own ears when I wrench my hands away, bringing them up instinctively to block out the yelling. Right, stupid. I was the one yelling and my jaw is tight and I’m just so tired and I’m standing up breathing hard and don’t even know when I stood up.And you’re standing with me, lowering my hands slowly, putting your hands on my shoulders carefully. You look at me a moment, like you’re not sure of something and for all the probabilities of responses, the percentages running through my head.

“It should have worked,” I say because all of a sudden I’m afraid of your silence. “It should have worked and this all should have been gone or it should’ve killed me and I should be gone.” 

“It will work next time, Julian.”

“You don’t know that... you don’t know that there will be a next time. You don’t know that-” Your finger is over my lips and you look so... I... I don’t know. I just know that I believe you when you say that it will be different.

“It will work next time because I’ll be there next time Julian, my Julian,” you say and my heart stops, I swear it stops when you say that and I feel my eyes getting wide, those words “My Julian My Julian...” looping so loud and fast that I can barely hear the rest. 

“I’m your...”

“You seem to be laboring under the misconception that a lack of sexual intimacy is a lack of obligation, but you don’t seem to realize how much greater a thing it is that you’re asking of me. _Hounds_ can couple. Guls, nothing is ever simple with you, is it? But then again I suppose you’d hold little fascination for me if it were. I told you, Julian. You’re my implant. You’re my _only_ implant. But... but that’s a rather one sided affair and so it should only be fair that I become yours in turn.... since that’s what you need, that’s what I’d foolishly missed.”

“I don’t... I don’t understand...” You embrace me warmly.

“Then I’ll understand for you.”

“I... I don’t think I... can remember how to breathe,” I tell you. I feel the ridges of your face to my cheek, a comforting tickle.

“Then I’ll breathe for you.” A nod, a deep, shuddering breath and I ask you if I might rest a bit longer before I have to go back. You tell me I can. This is too much. I don’t understand it but I understand that you’re here and you’re... still my friend or... or something else so you say and again there’s this odd rush of moments swimming against that dark current and it’s making me lightheaded. Or that’s the first signs of the serum failing... working? I don’t know. I ask you if you’ll lay with me a moment. I’m sure that I’m already asking too much of a pitiful bridge of wet sand just barely stuck back together. But you tell me that you will. And you do.

 

And I dream then for the first time, a feat I never would have thought possible. I dream that I hear your voice. I dream that I hear you and Miles outside the room speaking softly in hushed tones, and I dream that you tell him that you’ve brought me back as requested, that the muscle relaxers you swapped for my serum has worn off, and that it’s done- that they can rest their guilty consciences because their mess is cleaned up. I dream that you tell them I’ll be compliant, that I’ll be everything that they need of me once I’ve rested and I dream that he asks you how, that he asks you incredulously how you could have possibly done such a thing. I dream deeply, peacefully, that you leave him in silence, a look exchanged between the two which tells him that he doesn’t need to know that, and I dream that you lay back down next to me and tell me that everything’s alright... that I’m yours. I smile at that dream.

 

You’re such beautiful liar.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know that I could manage to write more of this but for the ending well, that's up to you. Julian may have overheard something akin to betrayal. He may have finally had one dream and it was this. Garak may very well be lying to Miles. Who knows. It's really up to you and well, thanks for sticking with this long and for the support.


End file.
